Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Schiller, announced a new iPhone model, the iPhone 5C at its Town Hall event in Cupertino, available for preorder 13 September and released 20 September.

The device, which sees Apple take a new direction and completely replace their existing iPhone 5 with a devices that features a four-inch display, plastic casing and largely the same internal specs as the iPhone 5.

Apple also created a set of soft-touch silicon rubber cases with circular cutouts (to show the device underneath) for the 5C which will go on sale for $29.

Specs – Plastic casing, A6 chip, four-inch display

As the rumours and leaks suggested, the iPhone 5C features a largely plastic construction, with the intention of keeping the device’s cost down. The plastic casing itself comes in five colours – yellow, green, white, blue and pink. The case itself is made of hard-coated polycarbonate with a steel-reinforced interior structure that serves as the antenna.

On the inside, it’s very much business as usual, especially if you’re familiar with the iPhone 5. The 5C makes use of the iPhone 5’s A6 chip, four-inch screen and eight-megapixel rear-facing camera. There is, however a new FaceTime HD front-facing camera with improved backside illumination, LTE support and 16 or 32GB internal storage.

Pricing and availability

In terms of pricing.The iPhone 5C will set you back $99/199 for the 16/32GB models, respectively, on a two-year contract contract. A contract-free model is expected to go on sale in Apple Stores soon.

In the UK, the iPhone 5C will be available for £469 for the 16GB model and £549 for the 32GB model.